This week we got rhythm. Lots of rhythm. Rhythm in pockets you might say, or cups if that makes any more sense. Either way, we got rhythm aplenty (for lack of a vowel-less quantity) plus it’s in brand new shiny controversial Youtube Widescreen (or not if our technical wizardry fails us. Damn you technical wizardry).

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The year is 2277, and for some reason everybody is from the 50s and has better technology than us. At least we can revel in the knowledge that they probably can’t pull off any funky moves on the dance floor. Wait a minute…

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Admittedly not video-game related, but I have to say that if this were a video-game; I’d almost certainly be horribly confused.

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BONUS RHYTHMS

Upon first glance, this doesn’t look that bad actually. Wait, wha… ARHGFMOBOSL /Asplode/ Brain Meltation.

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Oh why the hell not?

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That’s it for this Video-Day. It was fun wasn’t it? WASN’T IT!?!

A lot of big releases this week including Left 4 Dead, Rock Band 2, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe and Tomb Raider Underworld.

    
Left 4 Dead £35.99 (use coupon “wvfnvhrqp” for £5 off)
Rock Band 2 £37.99 (use coupon “wvfnvhrqp” for £5 off)
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe £29.99

Tomb Raider Underworld £34.73
Tomb Raider Underworld GAME Exclusive Limited Edition £44.99
Tomb Raider Underworld (with FREE Play.com Exclusive Artbook) £39.99

Need for Speed: Undercover £35.00
Lips (with microphones) £35.00
The Last Remnant £32.87
Naruto: The Broken Bond £29.99
The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon £29.99

Xbox LIVE - 60GB Starter Kit £49.97

  
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe £32.99
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe Kollector’s Edition £39.99 (use coupon “wvfnvhrqp” for £5 off)

Tomb Raider Underworld £34.99
Tomb Raider Underworld GAME Exclusive Limited Edition £44.99
Tomb Raider Underworld (with FREE Play.com Exclusive Artbook) £39.99

Need for Speed: Undercover £36.99
The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon £29.99
Rapala Fishing Frenzy 2009 £24.99

   
Skate It £29.00
Tomb Raider Underworld £24.73
Need for Speed: Undercover £29.00
The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon £29.00
Hasbro Family Game Night £24.99
Disney Sing It! £22.99
Disney Sing It! (with microphones) £34.99
TV Show King Party £9.99

  
Left 4 Dead £24.99

Tomb Raider Underworld £22.99
Tomb Raider Underworld GAME Exclusive Limited Edition £44.99

Need for Speed: Undercover £22.99
Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir Expansion Pack £14.99
The Sims 2 Mansions and Garden Stuff £7.95
Spore Cute and Creepy Party Pack £7.99
Legendary £23.99

  
Tomb Raider Underworld £17.73
Need for Speed: Undercover £22.99
Skate It £22.99
The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon £24.99
My Horse and Me 2 £24.99

  
Loco Roco 2 £13.89
Need for Speed: Undercover £19.99

  
Need for Speed: Undercover £19.99
The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon £19.99
Hasbro Family Game Night £14.99
Rugby League 2: World Cup Edition £19.99
My Horse and Me 2 £14.99

   
Tomb Raider Underworld Strategy Guide £9.99

A Kingdom for Keflings £6.80 / 800 Points

   
Sim City 2000 £4.99

  
Cue Sports: Snooker vs. Billiards £5.60 / 800 Points

   
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Coupons – Details of coupons used in this post 
Gameplay.co.uk - £5 off £35 - “wvfnvhrqp”
You must be registered for this code to work, can only be used once.

Can you believe that Half Life is 10 (T-E-N) years old? I was but a child when it first came out and my friend and I were all a-quiver at its greatness. Steam are celebrating by selling it for pennies, and hopefully you’ll join me in at least watching a few gameplay vids – y’know, fer old times’ sakes.

You’ve got £30-40 set aside to get your shooter fix; which one of these recent releases should you shell out for? This is the conundrum we face.

Join me, if you will, in drawing a mental Venn diagram comparing overlapping aspects of both games, and the aspects which make each game stand out.

Comparisons

• Production value; both games run on rock-solid engines and have been honed doubtless many times over.
• Intense, sweaty, edge-of-seat action. In a good way. Honest.
• Longevity; CoD: WaW’s levelling and perk/weapon unlock system will be similar to that of CoD 4, so will keep players returning again and again. L4D’s “AI Director” does an admirable job of ensuring that, even though you’re essentially replaying the same levels over and over, no experience is ever exactly the same. Plus, it’s Valve. They fooking love providing extra content as the months go by.
• Bloody good… ness; both titles are in the upper echelon of shooter releases this year, hence why we’re trying to decide which one to buy.

CoD: WaW

• It has a single-player game! If it gets anywhere near the quality of CoD 1 or 4, they’re on to a win before we even get to multiplayer.
• WWII setting; some claim it’s been overdone but personally I still love it. Band of Brothers is still the greatest TV production ever, and as long as the experiences keep entertaining and storylines don’t start blatantly repeating, many will continue to lap it up.
• Online team-play isn’t completely necessary; it might help to talk to your teammates and strategise, but it isn’t essential to the experience.

L4D

• Zombies. They’re ace. And they’re everywhere. Think 28 Days Later, rather than Romero. LOTS of 28 Days Later, with super-baddies.
• Co-optastic; as opposed to CoD: WaW’s competitive player-against-player “matches”, L4D plays out as separate zombie movies where players cling together against hordes of zombies. Atmospheric, exhilirating and packed with genuinely heroic moments of sacrifice, the player feels like one of the gang rather than a one-man-army.

It would be foolish of us to try and sway you one way or the other. Both games are big successes in their own right, but the experience for the player depends more on preference of setting or team mechanics than one game being outright better than the other.

UPDATE: Yes, I realise there’s a zombie mode in CoD: WaW. Let’s not confuse matters any sodding more!

This week we have Call of Duty: World at War, Mirror’s Edge, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts and more.

   
Call of Duty: World at War
In-store: £27.00 at ASDA
Online: £35.00

Mirror’s Edge
In-store: £32.97
Online: £32.97 (search for “Mirror’s Edge”)

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts £34.73
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 £39.99 (use coupon “NW11GMEHW” for £3 off)
Scene It? Box Office Smash £19.99
Scene It? Box Office Smash (with controllers) £29.99
Shaun White Snowboarding £34.99

 
Call of Duty: World at War
In-store: £27.00 at ASDA
Online: £37.99 (use coupon “NW11GMEHW” for £3 off)

Mirror’s Edge £34.97
Alone In The Dark: Inferno £34.99
Shaun White Snowboarding £37.99
SingStar Vol. 3 £17.73
SingStar ABBA £17.99

  
Wii Music £29.99 (add gift wrap and use coupon “NW11GMEHW” for £2.01 off)
Call of Duty: World at War £29.00
Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Lightsaber Duels £29.00
Rayman Raving Rabbids TV £29.99 (add gift wrap and use coupon “NW11GMEHW” for £2.01 off)
Shaun White Snowboarding: Road Trip £24.97
NHL 2K9 £17.99
FaceBreaker K.O. Party £14.73
Kung Fu Panda – Legendary Warrior £24.71
High School Musical 3: Senior Year DANCE! £22.99

 
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King £17.73
Call of Duty: World at War £27.99
The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria Expansion Pack £14.73
Everquest 2: The Shadow Odyssey £14.99
Football Manager 2009 £24.83

 
Call of Duty: World at War £24.73
Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Jedi Alliance £24.99
Guitar Hero: On Tour – Decades £23.91
Guitar Hero: On Tour - Decades Bundle £29.99 (add gift wrap and use coupon “NW11GMEHW” for £2.01 off)
Rayman Raving Rabbids TV £21.49
Shaun White Snowboarding £23.95
My Health Coach: Stop Smoking with Allen Carr £14.73
Deal or No Deal: The Banker is Back £12.73
Kung Fu Panda – Legendary Warrior £23.73
Flower, Sun and Rain £22.49
Disney Fairies: Tinker Bell £23.99

 
Football Manager 2009 £17.73
Shaun White Snowboarding £23.95

 
Call of Duty: World at War £23.73
SingStar ABBA £14.73

  
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Note: Instead of new releases this week, the following games were reduced in price
Feeding Frenzy £3.40 / 400 Points
Worms £3.40 / 400 Points
ULTIMATE Mortal Kombat 3 £3.40 / 400 Points

  
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Mega Man 3 £3.50 / 500 Points
Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium £5.60 / 800 Points

Coupons – Details of coupons used in this post
GAME.co.uk - £3 off £30 - “NW11GMEHW”

Major UK video-game retailer, GAME have revealed a new, interesting take on competitions. They are currently hosting a flash game called Console Wars in which the player engages in Command & Conquer style RTS battles either defending for the Retro Alliance, or the invading NxtGn Elite.

In order to take part in the competition, you must hold an account on the website (free of course) and then you’ll have to click "Win Prizes" in the game. After submitting your email address, you should go and set up your wish list. Your wish list is what you’re playing for. Everything you put on it will become your prize later on so if you don’t set it up, you’ll get a measly nothing if you win. Just so you know, the maximum total value of your list is £1000, so don’t try putting 20 PS3s on there as it won’t work.

The game itself isn’t bad for a flash game, and it’ll hold your interest for as long as necessary to enter the competition. This is for UK residents only and the competition closes on the 31st of December. You must take part in the game to enter and have a chance of winning, and your chance of winning increases, the more levels of the game you complete. If you have a few minutes to spare in the office, and they don’t regulate your Internet usage with strict filters, then there are much worse ways to kill time than Console Wars. It’s reasonably fun, and winning stuff is always fun.

Source: Console Wars

Unshaven and forgetting the names of games, my lesson in professionalism left the Expo in true shock. Marvel as I even claim to be good at Far Cry 2.

Can’t really stop to chat, I have LittleBigPlanet to be playing. You may even get a review/playdiary out of me before Christmas!

Many thanks to Allan and eventually Myk for keeping the site alive!

Clickety click for ugliness.

Steam are running a fantastic deal for all of you money-savvy audiophiles out there. For this week only, you can pick up Audiosurf for just $2.49 (£1.60 in real money). It’s more than worth it in my opinion, even at $9.99 it’s a great deal and it’s without a doubt one of my favourite indie games that I have played ever (up there with the other five I’ve played).

You thrifty music fans need to head over to the Steam store (yep, you’ll need Steam installed, is that really such a bad thing?) to get your copy. If you’re really as cheap as I presume then you’ll already have hundreds of illegally downloaded tracks on your computer (yer thieving bastards!) so you’re only paying a cheap fare to enhance your music experience.

What I’m trying to say is, get this game. Get it while it’s cheap. Get it while it’s expensive. I don’t care, just get it. It’s great. Honest.

Audiosurf $2.49 this week only

Now  that I’ve recovered from whatever I got down in London, I can finally look at the screen without getting the urge to proclaim that the light burns. Nor do I hack a hernia-inducing hurricane when I’m trying to sleep. Now you’ve got that thought in your head, let me say that it was good.

Nay, it was great.

Pretty much every part of the gaming community was there. You had the gamers, the semi-pro’s (We wouldn’t really want Fatal1ty there. Nobody would know, or care, who he was), those both participating and interested in the industry, as well as the press and the representatives from both developers and publishers.

The biggest surprise of the show for me was Call of Duty: World at War, and I’ll explain why. When I heard that the fifth instalment of the CoD series was to be developed by Treyarch, I was dismayed. For those of you that don’t know why, Treyarch also made Call of Duty 3, best known for being the worst in the series (at least from the point of view of gamers). But as I said in the article, it’s tight and reeks of CoD4. Which is not a bad thing at all.

So. Onto the good stuff. Links to the games we tested.

• Tom Clancy’s HAWX
• Mirror’s Edge (And the demo-release follow up)
• Super Hind
• Tom Clancy’s EndWar
• Gears of War 2
• Call of Duty: World At War
• WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2009
• Race PRO
• Prince of Persia

And now for a gallery of shots.

I’ve been a big fan of Prince of Persia since the beginning of the previous generation’s remake series (I’ve never completed a Prince of Persia game, but I am willing to live in blissful ignorance of that fact). Needless to say, I was excited at being able to try out the new game a few months before release, and also needless to say, it is a worthy successor to not only the previous series, but the originals to.

From that, I mean that the game holds features more common to the original Prince of Persia than the previous series, while still including the acrobatic thrill the last-gen games offered. In this, you might argue that it feels a bit like Assassin’s Creed (it does run on the same engine after all).

In the new Prince of Persia, the time-shifting TiVo system of old is replaced by a new gimmick. Her name is Elika. She is magic. That’s about it.

While you might expect Elika to be the star of the new game, she factors into the gameplay as little more than a weapon - being assigned to one of the buttons much the same as acrobatic attacks, or sword attacks are. This plays into combat interestingly as you jump around using deadly combinations to surprise and defeat your foes.

Talking of combat, in the new Prince of Persia you only fight one enemy at a time (an homage to the original? Or perhaps an example of the limitations of the Scimitar engine). This means that you need to think a lot more about every move you take, as you face death after one connecting strike to your vulnerable body and means that blocking is key to the game. Blocking is also key for the enemies, which is why the variety of attacks becomes so important to  surprise your enemy and get through his defence. It also makes for tactically engaging boss battles.

The premise of the new Prince of Persia fits in with the new, colourful artistic-direction as the big meanie - Ahriman (God of Darkness and all that) seeks to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting residents of Persia, draining light and colour from all things in the realm. Twilight Princess? What’s that when it’s at home?

The game begins with The Prince wandering through the lands searching for his money-laden donkey. On his search, he meets Elika (well it’s more of a desperate alliance while she’s on the run from her tyrannical father… rather than bumping into him in Tescos) who is a Princess in mortal trouble. It soon becomes evident that the storyline only compliments the art-style and the voice acting is more Looney-Toons rather than Mass Effect. This is made worse by the script, which reacts with the acting to culminate in a strange new version of the Prince which strongly resembles Brendan Fraser’s happy-go-lucky hero from The Mummy.

The gameplay is the real star of the game though, and it’s a lot of fun running on, climbing up and grinding down walls with the help of your clawed gauntlet, which helps as much in combat as it does acrobatics. Combat is well executed in the game, making it a joy to fight enemies - including more tension in fights, while avoiding the irritation which often resulted from the Sands of Time trilogy (falling off ledges and the like while fending off grizzlies and horribles). Elika provides an interesting twist on the video-game ally and often helps rather than hinder (also providing an excuse to prevent the player from dying interestingly).

There were a couple of small bugs found in the preview copy I played, but these could easily be ironed out by the time the final release hits our waters in early December, and apart from a place where I got completely lost as to where I should be going, I really enjoyed my gameplay experience.

Prince of Persia is a must-buy for fans of not only the series but the genre also. I would recommend that you pick this up, though I find it hard to recommend as a pre-order only due to the vast quantity of quality titles coming out around the time. While the storyline and voice acting are questionable, the gameplay and graphical style deliver exactly what you would expect from a Prince of Persia game (in all it’s forms), and do not disappoint.